Good public MS/HS vs Magnet in MS/HS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The quality of the magnet consortia schools (loiderman, parkland, etc.) is lower than the competitive magnets (Takoma, Clemente, Eastern).

+1. You can't compare.

[Anonymous]

I would prefer magnets for my kids. "Good" ms/HS in mcps = wealthy. I'd prefer my children to be in a different environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would prefer magnets for my kids. "Good" ms/HS in mcps = wealthy. I'd prefer my children to be in a different environment.

I think that the students in the test-in magnets are probably wealthier, as a group, than the typical MCPS students. 8th graders at Roberto Clemente go to New York (humanities) and Boston (math/science) for a week. The Boston field trip costs close to $900.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would prefer magnets for my kids. "Good" ms/HS in mcps = wealthy. I'd prefer my children to be in a different environment.

I think that the students in the test-in magnets are probably wealthier, as a group, than the typical MCPS students. 8th graders at Roberto Clemente go to New York (humanities) and Boston (math/science) for a week. The Boston field trip costs close to $900.

Not sure that is true at our HGC. The kids are definitely wealthier in general than the kids in the same school who are not in the HGC but the students are more economically diverse than a school in Bethesda (and there are students in the HGC who are low income). In addition, the kids are in a less wealthy school environment. Also, Eastern and Takoma Park schools as a whole are generally more economically diverse than schools in the wealthier parts of the county.

[Anonymous]

For parents who aim at good university:
MS magnet, then W HIGH school.
Nobody is going to pick child with weak GPA from HS magnet over student with great GPA from W HS. No matter how famous your magnet.
It is extremely difficult to get mostly A in HS magnet. Unless your child is really very very gifted and motivated.
Most kids want a bit of air too, and not to be burned in HS before college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For parents who aim at good university:
MS magnet, then W HIGH school.
Nobody is going to pick child with weak GPA from HS magnet over student with great GPA from W HS. No matter how famous your magnet.
It is extremely difficult to get mostly A in HS magnet. Unless your child is really very very gifted and motivated.
Most kids want a bit of air too, and not to be burned in HS before college.

Right. Specifically, I suggest Wheaton or Watkins Mill. Students with great GPAs are a dime a dozen at Whitman, etc..

[Anonymous]

Sorry to bump up this very old thread, what is a "W" school by the way? Is it a general term for good schools? Or is it one of the below schools starting with a W:

Winston Churchill
Walter Johnson
Watkins Mill
Walt Whitman
Wooton
Wheaton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to bump up this very old thread, what is a "W" school by the way? Is it a general term for good schools? Or is it one of the below schools starting with a W:

Winston Churchill
Walter Johnson
Watkins Mill
Walt Whitman
Wooton
Wheaton

All of the above except for Wheaton and Watkins Mill, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Same strugle here. DC went fron HGC to TPMS. Now he wants to go to Blair. DC is very unlikely to get into top 10 colleges if she attends Blair, but her chance to get into one of the top will be greatly increased if she came back to home school, one of the W schools. I am dying for her to go to a top school but don't how to convince her to attend home school. I don't want to sound shallow because I still want to be her role model. Any suggestion?

[Anonymous]

I would think there is still a lot of competition for top 10 schools at W high schools. I would not give up the benefits of the magnet on that small chance it matters. Now a move to West Virginia..that might actually help!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same strugle here. DC went fron HGC to TPMS. Now he wants to go to Blair. DC is very unlikely to get into top 10 colleges if she attends Blair, but her chance to get into one of the top will be greatly increased if she came back to home school, one of the W schools. I am dying for her to go to a top school but don't how to convince her to attend home school. I don't want to sound shallow because I still want to be her role model. Any suggestion?

Why?

I want my kids to go to schools that are the right fit for them, so that they are positioned for success. I want the schools to be affordable and for them to graduate without debt, have intellectual peers, for their major departments to be robust, for them to have mentors in those departments, for their schools of choice to have high retention and graduation rates, and for them to have ample internship and work opportunities, as well as good counseling for and opportunities for admission to grad or professional school.

Why is a "top school" your priority for your DC?

For the record, I have two Blair SMAC students.

[Anonymous]

I find it funny that people want to cling to the idea that W High School means greater chances of going to an Ivy college later. First of all - the kids who are getting into Ivy from W HS have - parents who are alum and contributes to the Ivy, they can pay thousands to someone for writing their essays and they can pay thousands to someone to practice alum interviews with them. Also, they can pay for a professional college counselor who charge hundreds an hour.

The upper middle class students in W schools (typically the Asians) - they are the ones who are slogging their butts off and trying to stack up their resumes.The reality is that all top colleges will only take a handful of students from ANY HS. Be it magnet, w or non-w. Magnets have more of upper middle class students and their chances of getting into college is better than any other upper middle class student in a W. The ultra-rich will always find a way to get their students in Ivy. George W Bush being an example of a solid C student at Yale.

There is no comparison of what the Magnet provides over any other school in the county. Yes, once you are in a magnet program you can then bemoan the fact that 2.0 itself sucks or this or that teacher is not dedicated...but the truth is that what the magnet can offer is a whole lot more intense than other schools.

Having said that, if your child has gone through HGC and Magnet MS, and you end up going to a poor HS, their chances of getting into an Ivy is great! IF you know what you need to do to make it happen. Do you have the road map for that?

I would always want my child to get into the magnet HS simply because at some point in college they have to perform. Having gone through magnet makes it easier for them to succeed in college.

OP, a question for you. Are you super rich? If that is the case you can live anywhere you want. If you are upper middle class or lower, you should send your student to a magnet. I know of students in W schools who are taking Geometry in 9th grade and not a single AP course.

The magnets also have students whose home schools are W schools. There is a reason why these students are choosing the harder magnets than their home schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi everyone, I would really appreciate your input and advice on this. We are thinking of moving houses, and our children are in ES currently. Here are our two options:

1. Stay in our wonderful, walkable neighborhood where ES is great, but MS/HS are not good, and plan to go the Magnet Program route to avoid local schools.
2. Move to an area where the kids would be assigned to Churchill/Wooton/Whitman clusters.

For the sake of argument, let's assume magnet admission can happen (I understand that it's probably its own can of worms, and is not at all guaranteed, but let's do away with that issue for now and just say we can go to magnet programs/schools in MoCo for middle and high school). The question then is:

What's better: a 'good' high school in the area, or the magnet program in a not-so-good school? (What would you recommend we aim for? Do you have kids in magnet MS/HS programs and how do you think that compares to the regular 'good' MS/HS? What would you do if you were us and had to do it over again?) If you have comments on a specific MS, or a specific magnet program in the area, please share those as well.....

Thanks!!!!

This was us. We were lucky enough to get into magnet MS/HS but if not, we our backup plan was to move. I cannot tell you which route (magnet vs. "good" MS/HS) is better because we have experience with only one of two. I can, however, tell you without any hesitation that what you get out of magnet programs (particularly HS magnets) is invaluable. It saddens me to see MCPS's effort to slowly normalize the magnet programs. It is such a wonderful and unique program.

[Anonymous]

Ha! I just want to say my kid is in 9th at a W school and is taking no APs and Geometry! I literally love that you all talk down about him. This area is crazy. Come back and see me in 10 years after you push your kids to do everything they can to get into an Ivy league school and spend their entire high school careers trying to do it, all to impress you or to literally break their backs and burn out trying to achieve their parent's dreams for them. Meanwhile, my "average" kid will love high school, work hard and succeed in his chosen field (that he himself chooses). Good luck crazy people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha! I just want to say my kid is in 9th at a W school and is taking no APs and Geometry! I literally love that you all talk down about him. This area is crazy. Come back and see me in 10 years after you push your kids to do everything they can to get into an Ivy league school and spend their entire high school careers trying to do it, all to impress you or to literally break their backs and burn out trying to achieve their parent's dreams for them. Meanwhile, my "average" kid will love high school, work hard and succeed in his chosen field (that he himself chooses). Good luck crazy people.

LOL. Good luck.